Trouble Is
by theslytherinrose
Summary: Lucius fights hard to win back Narcissa's love after a traumatic separation, and as the two begin to build their lives together, personal hardships take center-stage and the war is nothing but in the way. Duties, prison, and death try to break them, but they continue to fight. A series of dates from 1974 to 1997. (Deviates a bit from canon present-day. TW: miscarriage/stillbirth.)


**AN: As the song is very relevant to the material, this is named for the Backstreet Boys song "Trouble Is," which I do not own, nor do I own HP. This one got emotional (trigger warning: stillbirth/miscarriage) and is set in my take on the universe, hence some departures from book canon. It hits several points in time from right after Hogwarts to Lucius's release from Azkaban. Don't go into it expecting violence, because it's not about the wars. It's about the development of the relationship between Lucius and Narcissa throughout the twenty-three years it glosses over. **

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><p><em>Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire<em>

_November 1974_

He sat at the edge of his bed, an old, worn photograph in his hand that he refused to look at. He knew exactly what he would see, if he allowed his pale grey eyes to search out the moving image he had clung to so many times before. It was harder, on days like this. Days when he knew she would have been here, if they had… If things had worked out differently.

Lucius knew that if he turned his head a few millimeters to the right and looked down, he would be faced with the image of her—her hand waving to him with his ring glinting on her finger, her smile as bright as though they had been apart for years and seeing him again had brought light to her world once more.

Gods, how he missed that smile.

He folded the photograph and slipped it into his pocket. He wanted to keep her close enough that if he reached for her, she would be there, but far enough that he could still pretend not to need her. He lay down on the bed in the spot he had always occupied, the place that had been his long before her. But only a moment passed before the need filled him again, and he reached out to touch the cold, empty space beside him. The place that had once been warm, when she lay here. The first time he had awoken to realize that it had not been a dream—that she had actually been here with him and was still present when his eyes opened again, warm and beautiful and _happy_—replayed tortuously in his mind just as it did each time he allowed himself to miss her as he lay here. Each time after that he had fallen asleep with her in his arms and awoken just the same way had been a miracle, as he now knew. He wished he had memorized each of them just as vividly. It had seemed then that the time would never come when he would need them to remember her.

Another night began to replay in his thoughts. He stood just outside the Leaky Cauldron, where he had believed it was safe to bring her along to spend an evening talking and reminiscing with his school friends. The rain poured from the clouds like one overturned bucket after another, but Lucius barely noticed the moisture. He only registered the stinging of his palm, where he held the ring Narcissa had left him with when she Disapparated. He hadn't known, then, why things had gone so wrong in the pub. She had never told him that the relationship her parents had arranged for her with Thorfinn Rowle years earlier had ended when the fool had tried to assault her. Had Lucius known this, that she had been placed in harm's way by agreeing to join him that night, he would have sooner killed Rowle and saved both Narcissa and their engagement. As it was, he had no idea why things had gone so terribly wrong. He only knew that they had, and that he had lost her.

But it couldn't be forever. From that day, he would begin his campaign to win her love once again and redeem himself for being so blind and reckless. Things would be alright again, and until that day, he had to keep himself together.

It had been months, now. How many? He couldn't recall. His life had become a blurry, endless expanse of waiting and struggling, continuing to fight in this war without his reason for fighting and seeing no way out.

He sat up and walked from the room, needing to be away. To clear his mind. He knew it wouldn't happen, but if he didn't try, he would go mad.

There were days when he was almost convinced he could move on. There were days the war consumed him, when he was too wrapped up in the Dark Lord's tasks to recall what so often kept him locked in isolation and made it hard to breathe. Once Lucius realized battle kept his mind occupied, he threw himself into it completely, using every moment he could to advance the Death Eaters' growing army. Before, he had fought out of necessity and because it was what he was raised for. His father had always expected him to fight for the Dark Lord, and so he had. Now, though, Lucius had begun to enjoy the violence and the blood. It numbed his mind, which was exactly what he needed. Years later, he would recall these days as his darkest. He had compromised his soul for peace of mind, and even that did not last. There would be Bellatrix fighting beside him, and the walls he had constructed to hold back his inner turmoil would break, as he would be reminded yet again of her sister.

_25 December 1974_

At last, he had devised a plan. Narcissa did not reply to his owls, and she avoided seeing him at all cost. But if he were to attend the masquerade ball her parents were hosting to celebrate Yule, he could arrive unnoticed, and in such a public setting, he could surely blend in with the crowd until the opportunity arose to speak with her. The ball was scheduled for 26 December, the evening before his twentieth birthday. As he lay down to sleep on the night before his greatest attempt, Lucius tried to believe that this would work. He ran through the words he would say in his mind until they ran together and were sure to haunt his dreams.

The earnest pleas for understanding he planned to make were, however, nowhere to be found, in his dreams. He was haunted instead by an image of her as she had been on the day he had proposed marriage. Tears filling her wide blue eyes, she had accepted with more enthusiasm than he had ever dared to hope, and as he had pulled her into his arms, he had vowed to love and protect her until the end of time.

This beautiful image gave way to the emptiness of his bedroom as he returned to the waking world from sleep, and instead of the perfection of her face, he was greeted by the undisturbed pillow beside him and the sheets led to tremble by a cold breeze through the open window. It was light outside, and Lucius decided he had slept enough. Today was the day he would make things right.

_26 December 1974_

Lucius reached up to fidget with the silver mask obscuring the top half of his face, shifting it a millimeter to the right. Barely a second passed before he shifted it back, aware that it had been in place the first time and that he needed to stop letting his nerves get the better of him if he planned to get through tonight in one piece. There they were, at the center of the room. Lucius rolled his shoulders backward and inhaled deeply, forcing himself not to show an ounce of the tension that filled every inch of his body. He watched the two of them move slowly in time with the small orchestra Narcissa's parents had commissioned for the occasion. Her eyes were closed as she leaned on Rookwood's chest, and the fact that she couldn't yet see Lucius should have eased some of his tension, he knew, but the complete lack of space between the two of their bodies only served to heighten his anxiety. Augustus was looking down at her with complete adoration, and she looked perfectly at peace. The difference in their heights was almost laughable—Augustus was 6'7", the last Lucius knew, and the woman they both loved had told him once that she was 5'4" —and her blond curls were a stark contrast to his nearly-black, chin-length hair, but for all their differences, Lucius couldn't deny that they looked like they fit together like puzzle pieces.

He couldn't stand it.

An hour or so into the gala, he'd managed to get her alone. He had borrowed her from Augustus for a dance, and miraculously, she had stayed. The two had finally spoken, and Lucius had at last convinced Narcissa to step outside onto the balcony to speak in private. With his free hand, he reached up and removed his mask, hoping she didn't notice the heavy circles under his eyes. He reached toward her face.

"May I?" he asked. She nodded, and he carefully removed her mask. When it was gone, he smiled at her. "There's the Narcissa I remember. Since we've been apart, I've thought of millions of ways to make up for what I've put you through."

"I haven't made it easy," she said with a humorless laugh. She was still so guarded. He remembered her telling him on the night she'd left that she had always been afraid of losing him to the Dark Lord's service, and part of her seemed still unwilling to be vulnerable to this again by letting him in.

"No, you were justified," he said. "But… now that I'm here…" He rested his hand gently against her cheek.

"I'm with Augustus, now." Her words hung in the air around them for ages, and then Lucius broke the silence.

"Do you love him?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

"Do you love me?"

"Lucius, I…" She struggled for words as a fresh wave of tears assaulted her eyes.

It was clear how hard she was trying not to answer him. That hesitation was all he needed to know that he had been right in coming here, after all. He leaned forward until their faces were nearly touching, his lips moving cautiously toward hers.

"Do you love me, Cissy?" He breathed. "Can you forgive me?"

_29 December 1974_

Instead of allowing him to kiss her, she had fled. He realized immediately that he should not have put her in such a position, but the damage was done. Days later, he had still heard nothing from her. He had received word from Macnair that Rookwood had been of ill-temper and that any mention of Narcissa had only received silence from him. Lucius wasn't sure whether it was prudent to hope that his efforts at the masquerade had been successful, but he knew there was only one way he could find out. Thus, he had waited outside her window with a perfect white rose concealed behind his back, and when his pebble-throwing had finally gotten her attention, she had come to the window with her eyes red enough to suggest that she had been weeping for quite a while. He had her attention, and he had finally begun to explain why he had come. How tortured he had been, every second wishing he could make things right by her. How he would change anything about himself that she asked, if she would only give him the chance. If they could be together again.

"Could you ever consider forgiving a fool like me?"

In a moment, she had disappeared from the window, and he stood there with the flower in his hand, waiting in silence to find out where she had gone. She then emerged from the front door of the house to run over the grass in her bare feet, and in moments she had reached him. She threw her arms around his neck as she sobbed.

"I love you," she said into his shirt, her voice muffled by the material and by her tears.

He laughed for what had to be the first time in months as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I love you, too."

_29 November 1976_

"How can you stand this?"

They sat on the bed, the room around them dark apart from the light of a few candles scattered on dressers and end tables. Lucius sat against the pillows and leaned back against the headboard, and Narcissa was seated on his lap, her head resting on his shoulder and her hand resting on her stomach. Several days previously, she had given birth to their first child. Their daughter, Alcyone, had been stillborn. Neither Narcissa nor Lucius had left the Manor since, and neither had left the other's side. The two had sat in silence here for the better part of an hour, now, she weeping silently and he cradling the back of her head with one hand and his fingers stroking her hair. The other hand softly rubbed her back, and as her words sank in, he inhaled deeply.

"I can't. It's tearing me apart."

It was true. He had not been this devastated since his separation from Narcissa years earlier. When he had held the tiny child in his arms, the one both of them had been so incredibly eager to welcome into their family and shower with love, Lucius felt that a part of his soul had died. To have such expectations and beautiful hopes for a future with his baby daughter and to have them ripped away instantly, when the healers divulged that she wasn't breathing… it had been enough to crush him. Like Narcissa, he had spent the last several days weeping and brooding and cursing the gods for inflicting so much pain. But still he sat up straight and held onto her tightly, unable to let her go. Lucius felt as though he must be losing his mind with grief—he was certain no sane person could endure this without breaking—but he felt, still, that he had to endure. For her. He couldn't crumble entirely; he knew seeing that would only cause her to do the same.

"But all we have is one another," he said quietly, pulling her closer and leaning down to kiss her hair. "And even though I don't feel it in the slightest right now, I intend to be as strong as I possibly can for you."

Narcissa lifted her hand from her stomach to cling to Lucius's shirt tightly enough to turn her slender knuckles white, burying her face in his chest as she wept. He held to her like a line keeping him from drifting out to sea as his tears fell into her hair.

_23 April 1985_

"Don't do this to yourself. Please. Everything is going to be okay."

Narcissa nodded, and after a few more moments of staring at the stone wall in front of her, she turned away, not resisting when Lucius pulled her into his arms. He closed his eyes briefly, and then he opened them again to take in the sight in front of him.

He had followed her to the family crypt, where Malfoys had been buried since the Manor's construction a millennium previously. He had found her, just as he'd known he would, staring at the wall on which were engraved the latest editions. His father lay here, now, as did Alcyone. Three more names were hewn into the stone beside hers: Prometheus on the left, and Veritas and Poseidon on the right. Since their eldest daughter's passing, they had lost another, as well as a son. Both had been stillborn. And at last, Narcissa had been able to tell Lucius of her first miscarriage, which had occurred when the two were still in their teenage years and too early on to determine the child's gender. Narcissa hadn't been far enough along to show visible signs of pregnancy, but even knowing that, Lucius continued to berate himself for not having realized what had transpired. He knew she had tried to cope by pretending it hadn't happened at all, and he couldn't begrudge her that. But he had wanted to name this child in order to give him—Malfoys had a strong history of their firstborns being male, and a guess at a gender had been necessary to consider a name—a proper memorial alongside his brothers and sisters.

"How do you know?" Narcissa asked quietly. She looked down at her stomach, round yet again, and let out a small sigh. They had been blessed beyond measure with the birth of Draco, who was currently napping in the house under the supervision of his grandmother, and they had wanted to give him a younger sibling with whom to grow up. Narcissa was now expecting twins, and Lucius had allowed himself the faintest hope that perhaps they would be as healthy as their beloved young son.

"Just have faith, my love."

_16 June 1985_

He didn't bother offering empty words. There was nothing that could possibly assuage the pain either of them felt as the healers carried away the bloody blankets and towels and the two tiny, peaceful bodies from the bedroom as their mother screamed her agony. He had asked his own mother to take Draco somewhere happy for a few hours, somewhere away from the pain. Lucius knew nothing could be said to make this the least bit easier, and so he only held Narcissa close until long after the candles burned into nothing.

_6 September 1987_

"Daddy, why're there little girls' clothes in the closet in one of the bedrooms upstairs?"

Lucius frowned, lowering his copy of _The Daily Prophet_ enough to look at his seven-year-old son, who was poking at the toast resting on his breakfast plate with a fork.

"Have you been exploring again, Draco?" Forgetting the entirety of the article he had been reading as he set his paper aside, Lucius watched his son closely, trying to determine what the boy was feeling.

"I was bored." Draco shrugged and poked at the toast's crust, his grey eyes looking up to meet the ones they matched. "Why are they there?"

Lucius sighed, reaching out to lay his hand over Draco's with a very sad smile. "We'll talk about it when you're older, little one. Please don't mention it to your mum, okay?"

_7 September 1987_

"Cissy? Are you in there?"

Lucius followed the sound of boxes shifting into the spare bedroom on the second floor that had been intended for the twins, and he found his wife sitting on the floor beside the nearly-empty closet. He froze for a moment, and as soon as he could make his legs work again, he moved over to sit down beside her.

"Draco asked you, didn't he?"

Narcissa nodded, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. "I knew he would, one of these days. He's so curious about the house—about everything, really. And we should've done this a long time ago. I just… couldn't."

"I know." He reached out to take her hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss it softly. "How can I help?"

_18 June 1996_

Lucius let out a sigh of complete and utter frustration. The mark on his left forearm pulsed ominously, and it ached through to his bones. Lucius knew the Dark Lord was angry. He always was, particularly lately. He was staging an ambush for the Potter boy, and Lucius had known the time was approaching fast. Ignoring the pounding of his heart and the desire coursing through his body, he leaned down to leave an urgent, passionate kiss on Narcissa's lips, his hand gently caressing her side through her crimson corset. She let out an irritated groan when he pulled back to seek his trousers, not bothering to find words for her feelings on his being called away, and he sighed heavily.

"I'm so sorry. I'll be home in no time. I won't let him keep me from you."

_Hours Later_

This had not gone at all according to plan.

The prophecy was destroyed, and the Dark Lord would be furious. Lucius didn't really give a damn about that, however. He was more worried about the blood he was losing from the injuries he'd sustained from the battle with the gods-forsaken Order. He had been bound through magic, chains he couldn't begin to break lashing together his ankles and his wrists behind his back. He knelt beside the rest of those who had been apprehended, several of which were unconscious from either their wounds or the actions of their captors. Lucius knew many of the Death Eaters blamed him for this, and he didn't bother pretending not to blame himself. Had he organized different groups for them to split into, could things have gone differently? He had no idea. Had they planned for the Order's involvement on top of Potter's, could this have been avoided? He didn't know. But he knew that his irritation at the man who had disappeared for fourteen years and returned to call himself master of all these now-to-be-incarcerated soldiers had probably been a distraction from the battle at hand. Lucius had once been loyal to the Dark Lord without question. Now, though, after they had all been left alone for so long to go about their lives and finally be left in peace, the idea of being dragged back into the man's service under pain of death and the death of their families had made most of the Death Eaters understandably bitter, and Lucius was no exception.

"Let us send word to our families," Lucius attempted, showing no signs of his pain as he met the eyes of the nearest Auror, who was glowering at the line of captives. "According to Wizarding law, they have the right to be notified of our apprehension." The man moved closer, stooping to glare at him.

"What's the use? They'll read about it in the _Prophet_. Minister Fudge may not have anticipated you lot showing up, but he won't be able to keep the papers from their frenzy. Soon everyone'll know about the idiots who got themselves caught breaking into the goddamn Ministry."

Lucius sighed in irritation, ignoring the man's taunts as he focused on the more desperate matter at hand. "My wife is expecting me home; I need to send word—"

The Auror moved his arm swiftly to backhand Lucius across the face. Jaw stinging and eyes burning with hatred, Lucius made a mental vow to kill this man as soon as his wand was returned.

"She won't give a damn. Who would miss you? Have to be a downright evil bitch to marry someone like—"

_12 July 1996_

Apparently head-butting and attempting to maim an arresting officer wasn't something the Ministry smiled upon. Lucius had been immediately stunned and held under additional restraint until he had been transported with the rest to Azkaban to await sentencing. No visitors were permitted until the Death Eaters' fate was determined by the Wizengamot. The captives were left to the mercy of the dementors, who crept through the halls like the long-fingered shadows of night, waiting to grab hold of their prey and drain the precious hope that kept it alive.

Draco was safe at school, or at least he should be. That amount of time hadn't passed yet, right? Lucius glanced at the meticulously-carved tick-marks he had made on the ceiling of his cell, and the deliberate but still faint lines indicated that he had been trapped here for a little over three weeks. That is, if they were accurate, and he hadn't lost more time than he was aware of due to the intervention of the soul-devouring demons outside the cold metal bars.

Three weeks, when at the last he'd told Narcissa, he'd been planning to be gone for no more than three hours. Lucius couldn't imagine what she must be thinking. What Draco must be thinking. Lucius tried not to focus on how angry they must feel—how worried, how betrayed. But with nothing here to distract him and the dementors already draining away his capacity for optimism, he had little else to think about.

_19 July 1996_

Lucius had no idea how long he had been staring at the blank wall of his cell, unmoving and unfeeling. The dementors had made their rounds several times already, and the light of the candles outside was fading. A glance at the dullness of the ceiling above him and the tick-marks he had carved told him that he had been here for… entirely too long. A month in this place might as well have been an eternity. A month in solitude terrible and cold, apart from the visit a few days before that had made him feel that he was still human.

Apparently, the Wizengamot had settled on a life-sentence. Lucius refused to accept that. He was allowed visitors, at least, and on the day of the sentencing, Narcissa and Draco had visited to tell him not to worry, that someone would determine a way out of this disaster.

It seemed like some sort of cruel joke life had decided to play on them, that this would happen just in time for him to be locked away and unable to do anything to help her. He held her as well as possible through the unforgiving metal bars, cursing himself for allowing this to happen.

"This punishment will not last forever."

Whether he meant the Azkaban sentence—_life_ sentence, as the Wizengamot had informed him upon his hearing—or what surely awaited just outside these walls from the Dark Lord, even Lucius was uncertain. Surely both must end. He would not allow himself to consider the idea of actually remaining here in these dementor-haunted halls for the rest of his days, and he could certainly redeem himself in the Dark Lord's eyes, when he escaped.

"I promise you that I will be with you again soon. I don't know how or when, but I will not die here. You will not have to do this alone, Narcissa. Do you believe me?"

She clung to him tightly, and he felt her nod. For a long moment, they stood in silence, and he couldn't help feeling that there was something else she wanted to tell him. He didn't want to push her, though, and so he contented himself in the knowledge that for this moment, she was here in his arms, and nothing else mattered.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And I love you. Always."

He lowered his head a bit to kiss the top of hers, and then a familiar chilling sensation ran through him. Lucius shifted his eyes to glance down the corridor, and he found the shadows stirring there. A glance in the other direction told him that the Aurors who had escorted Narcissa to him were not paying the slightest bit of attention to what lay in the darkness; they were watching the Malfoys with undisguised scrutiny. They would be of no assistance.

"Cissy, look at me." She did, and he inhaled deeply, catching as he did so the scent of her perfume. "You have to go."

She blinked, looking wounded by his request. "Go? I only just—"

"I don't want to alarm you," he said with forced calm, though he could feel the hair at the back of his neck beginning to stand on end. "But it isn't safe to be here for long." He glanced meaningfully toward the pulsing shadows, and when she followed his eyes, her own widened in terror.

"I can't leave you to this, darling." She looked to him again, panicked.

"You must. This is my sentence to serve." One of his hands moved to her cheek while he continued to embrace her with the other. "Protect our children, Cissy. It isn't safe for you to visit me. Least of all while you're with child."

By her expression, one would think he'd stricken her.

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm going to visit you."

"No." The word came out much more harshly than Lucius had meant it to, and he backtracked, trying to smile at her. "There won't be a need, because I'll be out of here soon enough. And don't let Draco. He doesn't need to be subjected to this."

"Lucius, _please_ don't ask me to—"

"Narcissa. Promise me."

Frowning, she struggled for words for a long moment, and then she sighed, looking to him imploringly. "I can't."

He took a deep breath and let it out, aware of the ticking away of time as the dementor drew nearer. They didn't have time to argue about why she should leave him to suffer alone. "Fine. But for right now, you need to get home."

Visibly relieved when he did not push the matter of her staying away, not yet, Narcissa stretched up on her toes to meet his lips. They lingered there for a long moment, and then she pulled back.

"I'll see you soon, my love."

He could only nod, and then he was left with empty air where she had just been. He watched her walk away down the corridor, arms folded in on herself and shoulders slumped in despair. Her last kiss lingered on his lips, and he wondered how long it would be before he could kiss her again. He was left with empty air where she had been standing, and as the Aurors followed her out, he knew the dementors were soon to be his only company. He knew his words had hurt her; she never stood that way, never walked with anything less than confidence and elegance. His chest ached as though a hole had been punched through it, and when she had left his line of vision, he turned away from the corridor outside and sank to the floor, leaning heavily against the bars.

She had to understand that he was trying to protect her. They had lost so many children already, and if this one had even the smallest chance of survival, he had to ensure that chance was taken. And even if she hadn't been pregnant, the idea of exposing Narcissa to the torment of the dementors was appalling. She needed to stay safe, far from here, as did Draco. Lucius knew his son wasn't going to agree to that any sooner than was Narcissa, but he had to try to convince them somehow. He would be fine, here, if he needed to be. He would be strong alone if it meant keeping them safe from harm.

_14 June 1997_

Cold sweat clung to his body as he sat up quickly enough to cover the blackness around him in the white spots of vertigo. His dreams had been haunted by hooded black figures and dank, lifeless cells and the longest separation he had endured from his family in the last twenty years.

Twenty years. That's what it would be this July—twenty years since he had married the woman he'd loved since Hogwarts. He turned to his right, the disorientation of just waking enough to convince him of what he would see there. Narcissa would either be sleeping soundly or just barely roused from her sleep by his movement. She would look up at him sleepily and ask if he was alright, and he would smile softly as he realized he was home in bed beside her. He would lie back down and pull her close, and together, they would drift off to sleep again in peace.

Naturally, that was not what he found. He turned right to face a stone wall, grey and menacing and oppressive. A small, tortured sound left his throat, and he understood.

As the perfect vision of being home with his wife faded and he lay back down, Lucius looked up at the mass of tick-marks on the ceiling. Judging by the amount, it was… actually almost July. If he was correct in keeping track of the days, it was mid-June, and his daughter was almost three months old. Narcissa had brought Magdalena to visit once, right after her birth and against his requests based in fear for their safety. The girl had precisely her mother's eyes. Draco had visited several times over the course of his holidays from school, and he was looking much older than seventeen. Though he refused to discuss it, Lucius knew Draco had been punished for his failures in the Dark Lord's eyes. He told Draco how proud he was of the resilience he showed, and how sooner rather than later, they would be reunited somewhere other than this hellhole.

Viewing their agreement as fulfilled after Lena's birth, Narcissa had begun visiting again afterward, occasionally managing to stay long enough to be let into his cell. They were still influential enough to convince the powers that be to allow this to happen, and though it wasn't the same as being with her at home, Lucius cherished the opportunity. He tried to recall how many days it had been since he had seen her, and it was so damned frustrating that he couldn't precisely recall. It was getting more difficult to keep track of the days in marks on the ceiling. If he worked backward and focused on the minutiae of each day he was trapped here, he could work it out, but each was so mind-numbingly bleak and similar to the last apart from those rare visits that he seemed to be living in one unending nightmare. Azkaban was, as he knew, designed to break the spirit. He couldn't let it succeed. He tried to focus on the vision that had passed through his mind upon waking, imagining he was in his own bed with Narcissa instead of being trapped in this damned cell.

_18 June 1997_

"You can't be serious."

"Would you just come on? We don't have a lot of time."

Without another word of protest, Lucius climbed through the hole Macnair had made in the bars and accepted the wand he was offered—stolen from an Auror, he knew, and to be replaced by his own if he made it out of here alive. He saw that several of their allies had arrived, hoods raised, and that now nearly all of those imprisoned of their ranks were standing in the corridor in varying stages of confusion and satisfaction. Macnair had begun assisting their liberators as soon as he was freed, and Lucius spotted Rookwood, Nott, Travers, Max, and several others emerging from where they had been held.

As often as he had told himself it would, Lucius had never been able to convince himself to truly believe this day would come. Freedom. He was going home.

He dropped the Auror's wand on the threshold and closed the front doors behind him quickly, the battle to leave Azkaban already far from his mind. His legs threatened to collapse beneath him, but he willed them to carry him up the stairs and down the hall through the darkness. The Manor was quiet, and he assumed everyone was asleep. Good. They needed the peace.

Lucius froze as he passed the nursery, his grey eyes falling on a sight he made sure to burn into his mind. Narcissa was sitting in the rocking chair facing away from him, Lena sleeping in her arms. Lucius crept silently into the room and rested a hand lightly on his wife's shoulder, a smile breaking over his face at the feeling of her warmth.

A small jolt passed through her—it appeared that she had been somewhere between awake and asleep herself—and she turned her head toward him. Her blue eyes widened in shock, and she let out a gasp. He glanced between the faces of his wife and daughter, momentarily stunned.

"Lucius?"

He touched a finger to her lips softly, grinning excitedly. He mouthed "_Shh_" with a nod to the little one, and then he lifted Magdalena carefully, watching her adoringly for a long moment as Narcissa got to her feet and laid a hand on his cheek.

"How?"

"Later," he said, shaking his head. He leaned down to lay a kiss on the child's forehead and then laid her gently in her crib. Not a moment later, Narcissa knocked the wind from his lungs as she tackled him from the side, squeezing him tightly. Chuckling, Lucius shifted in her arms to hold her to him, finally beginning to allow himself to believe that things might be alright after all.


End file.
